I've been trying to catch up before posting, but this forum has been moving so quickly that it's taken several days , finally there!

First, all the marathon results .

There are so many of you I've been following for a few years, including Minni, Freemers, Chick, Carrot and AA and it was so great to see you all getting PBs and running some fantastic times . FRC, I've known for less long but your journey goes back much longer and well done for such a great time.

There are also some incredible stories to motivate in coming back from injury. Freemers, your injury was quite some time ago but you've done so well at beating it and putting it behind you. Oompa you did so well to get a good time in the circumstances (now rest that knee!), Barry your dedication in doing those 4 hour cross training sessions was incredible, many lesser mortals would have quite at that stage. Hope you can get to the bottom of injuries and fully put them behind you.

O4S, making the start line so soon after your operation was amazing. That's great news about the hand . Hope the 100 miles goes well and that your survive your students' questions.

Then Minni, KFC and Bro were all brave about your pacing and while it didn't work for all of you you've all shown that done sensibly it's a risk worth taking.

Finally, all the thread spirit really shone through in the way you all ran together, and a big thank you to Minni who keeps us all together as a community.

I've had two recent positives. First the physio gave me the go ahead to build up to my runs to 45 mins provided I build them up gradually. Secondly, I got a place in the Olympic Park run . It's the perfect target to have to get me training again (I lost motivation a bit when the stretching was taking longer than the running) even though my main aim is to be able to run that distance without any injury problems. I'm happy to see that I'm not the only one from the thread runnning so hopefully I'll get to meet some of you to confirm that you're not mass murderers!

Re: cross training - I am intending to keep it going as much as possible. Some swim, bike, weights, gym, core, yoga etc. I suspect this is the key to avoiding injury plus making you a stronger runner. Even when I'm not injured I seem to be constantly plagued with aches, pains and niggles.

Weeks 10 & 11 were when I was ill so dropped slightly. Week 14 I did a 10k race so no long run but I did my long run at the beginning of week 15, which is why it seems to jump up. Really I just did my 20 a day late.

A real mixture CG but quite a lot of shorter stuff this time (short distance is my weakness) and once or twice a week. I've been getting coached by Moraghan for the last two years so he does the thinking and I do the running.

I have to say that I think to reach your marathon potential you have to put the miles in, and runner will only get so far on a lower mileage base. That might be as fast as the runner wants to get, which is fine. And the higher the mileage the easier the majority of those miles need to be - not running everything too fast.

Wow, a couple of days in the wilderness and so many posts! Still tied to my iPad so no race report yet. I cannot deface it. See, even that last sentence was mucked up by the auto thingy. FRC, please send me the guide you mentioned ages ago

Too many glasses of red for me to remember everything I've just read back. Loving the defacing of the Timex magnets. I also gave the bloke on the Timex stand a stern talking to about the lack of 2013 magnets and was told I was not the only one To complain........

Glad people are managing to get out and run again. I did a spin class today and will go for my first post-race run on Sunday, hopefully. I think my aims so far are no autumn marathon, but to try and lock in some races in the autum when the season kicks off again in Dubai. Then aim for 3:30 in Dubai marathon at the end of Jan.

Loving reading this thread some dedicated runners here and nice to see a few old faces still posting

Minni - your stats on weekly mieage and long runs was interesting. I think one of the reason I fell short on the 3:30 was due to lack of weekly mileage, if I ever get back to the marathon distance will be increasing weekly mileage in months leading up thats for sure

But thats a long way off, still, proud of my 3.3 at 9:47 pace today !!

3:30 or bust - I think consistency has played a big part too. Back In the day when we were all posting on your thread (when was that - 2004 ish) I used to start marathon training in Jan, build up, run the marathon, them spend the rest of the year generally mucking about before starting it all again. So I was never really improving because I was always starting from the same level. Since Oct 2010 I've had consistent training and this has brougt my times down.

Minni - Wise words. The consistancy is the key, I had a friend who was a a 2:35 man in his day, he was always drumming that into me. But around that time when I was running London I was rather like yourself starting in January

I need consistancy even at my lowly level at the moment - over the past years I have always been "making a come back" running 10 miles a week then doing nothing - then 10 3 weeks latre etc. No good trying to be more consistant now.

But will be honest even though I am only on 3.3, from my legs I can tell this is going to be a long Journey of a year I think even for a half - got one planned for April 14 but still going to put VLM application in.

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